We didn’t think it would be that cool. We crossed our fingers and put in the hard work to make it happen, but none of us really thought it could be THAT cool.

Coming away from ten New River Rendezvous’ was tough on the mojo. After a decade of near flawless execution of the East Coast’s finest climber gathering, we listed about at sea for a bit wondering what to do next. It gave us a chance to refocus on who we are and what our goals are—to “preserve, promote, and conserve” our world-class climbing resource. So we set out tocreate some smaller events that would focus on service and community.

Someone hatched the scheme for a Yosemite Facelift-inspired Work Week, but one that would be so fun it wouldn’t feel like work at all. (Not) Work Week was born and a dedicated crew slayed the trail to Sandstonia last year. But we still needed to raise some loot for climbing hardware so Jay Young came up with the idea for a film festival. Of course, the film festival would come right at the end of the (Not) Work Week and we saw our little events start to morph into something much bigger. We just can’t help ourselves.